An assassin took several shots at Donald Trump. A poor debate performance exposed the senility of President Biden. Some of the headlines the media have produced have been utterly beyond belief. The meme of the “Fiery but Mostly Peaceful Protests” is reoccurring in front of our eyes to develop narratives that call for the extra-democratic replacement of one party’s candidate, and downplay an assassination attempt on the other’s.
I am reminded about a little-known excerpt in Alexander Dumas’s travelogue Une Année à Florence (A Year in Florence), that is curious enough to address in light of these recent experiences. The excerpt lists ten opinions taken from the Parisienne newspaper Le Moniteur Universel, and the opinions show, step-by-step, the attitudes of the newspaper during Napoleon’s return from Elba and the resulting Hundred Days, ending with the Battle of Waterloo.
Dumas was a prolific French author whose works remain popular today. His novels have been adapted into nearly 200 different films. The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and The Man in the Iron Mask are works and film adaptations that many of us would find familiar. When he wasn’t writing swashbuckling, historical, adventure novels, he was writing magazine articles and travel books. He also was a dramatist and founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris. His published works totaled over 100,000 pages.
During his year in Florence, he recounts ten opinions the Parisienne newspaper produced during Napoleon’s march from the landing at Golfe-Juan to his successful return to Paris as the French Emperor.
- The cannibal has come out of its lair.
- The ogre of Corsica has just landed at Golfe-Juan.
- The tiger has arrived in Gap.
- The monster slept in Grenoble.
- The tyrant crossed Lyon.
- The usurper was seen sixty leagues from the capital.
- Bonaparte advances with great strides, but he will never enter Paris.
- Napoleon will be under our ramparts tomorrow.
- The emperor arrived at Fontainebleau.
- Yesterday, His Imperial and Royal Majesty entered his Tuileries castle in the midst of his loyal subjects.
Napoleon transforms from Cannibal to Royal Majesty in a period of only 20 days, and Dumas concludes:
It is the ultimate monument to journalism; it need not do anything else, because it won’t do anything better
Alexander Dumas, Une Année à Florence
Whether this exact series of opinions or headlines ever actually existed is up for debate. Le Moniteur Universel’s archives going back to the French Revolution are online to consult. At the very least, the issue on March 18, 1815, describes Napoleon as a criminal, and by the issue on March 22nd, he is described as the Emperor of France, by the grace of God.
But that was in Paris, during a tumultuous time, over two hundred years ago. Certainly with all of our technology, science, reason, and our journalists’ dispassionate dedication to seeking the truth even when — no, especially when — the truth is inconvenient, today’s journalism is much better and doesn’t suffer from the same incentives a journal like the Le Moniteur Universel did.
We observe some recent headlines:
Before the debate:
- Fortunately, President Biden shows no signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
- (LA Times, Opinion: What a doctor sees when Joe Biden hesitates, 3/7/2024)
- Questions about the president’s fitness for office aren’t in good faith.
- (The Independent, Let’s fact check Biden’s so-called mental decline, 7/11/2023)
- Forgetting the names of acquaintances or having difficulty remembering dates from the past doesn’t affect decision-making or judgment, brain experts say.
- (NBC News, As Biden’s memory issues draw attention, neurologists weigh in, 2/10/2024)
After the debate:
- Biden can’t put a sentence together. We have to change our candidate.
- (Newsweek, Joe Biden Has Suffered ‘Cognitive Decline’ in Past Six Months, 7/2/2024)
- But the reality remains: everyone in America who tuned in to the debate could see for themselves how Biden has aged.
- (Time, Inside Biden’s Debate Disaster and the Scramble to Quell Democratic Panic, 6/28/2024)
- The president appeared as the shadow of a great public servant.
- (New York Times, To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race, 6/28/2024)
After an assassination attempt:
- Trump escorted away after loud noises at PA rally (Washington Post).
In the calls to replace Biden, it is almost easy to recall one of Dumas’s stories of political intrigue. The Iron-masked man, held in secret captivity in the cold cells at the Bastille, was the twin brother of the corrupt French King. Aramis, with ambitions to become the Pope, imprisons the king and replaces him with his previously imprisoned twin brother.
This story has had its own retelling in the American political entertainment scene. In the movie Dave, the sitting president has had a severe stroke. His Chief of Staff, with ambitions to become president, arranges to replace the incapacitated president with his look-alike.
In the attempt to imprison and assassinate Donald Trump, it is almost easy to recall another of Dumas’s stories where a fabulously wealthy man appears and seeks his revenge against the conspirators who unfairly sent him to a remote prison to die.
Stories aside, today, an array of fact-checking organizations have been built, and accusations of fake news or misinformation fly with reckless abandon. Yet, the news, easier to consume than ever before, retains the same problems Dumas wrote about.
We may be inclined to view the stories of President Biden’s mental health or Trump’s attempted assassination as isolated cases. The journalists were well-intentioned and simply made a mistake. However, we only need to go back a few years further, and we can also find those good intentions and mistakes were used to upend entire fields of science and even to replace the entire social contract resulting in lockdowns, vaccine segregation, masking, and absurd new social etiquette.
Dumas may have exaggerated the headlines he selected to make his point about journalism. Exaggerating headlines does not appear to be a problem we have today. We can observe in real time that Dumas’s point is very, very true.
By paying too much attention to the news cycle, we not only imperil our understanding of events but also our ability to think critically about them.
That is the ultimate monument to journalism. It cannot be anything better, because it cannot do anything else.
Republished from the author’s Substack
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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